Re: The suffix -IA
dalmatia@eburg.com
Sat, 16 May 1998 07:55:08 -0700
Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
> At 8:19 PM -0400 5/16/98, Paul Zellmer wrote:
> >James 1:21: APOQEMENOI PASAN RUPARIAN KAY PERISSEIAN KAKIAS
> >
> >This question has to do with the three -IA nouns. If I understand the
> >grammars correctly, these are noun forms which are based on -EUW verbs,
> >which, in turn, have been based(?) on adjectives. Many of the nouns
> >with this ending seemed to be translated in English with the English
> >suffix -ness, which expresses having an expressed quality. But I am
> >unclear about the bias of the form in the Greek.
>
> Let me say something general about the -IA suffix; it is one of the most
> important formative elements, not only for Greek nouns but for making
> feminine forms of adjectives and participles; and it is not at all
> RESTRICTED to any relationship to -EUW verbs. It seems particularly
> functional to create nouns out of stems in -S-, -f- (digamma, the -w-
> sound, not phi), -Y- (iota consonant, the -y- sound, not upsilon), any many
> of these nouns are generalizing or abstract
Carl ~
Thank-you for your wonderful explanation if IA word formation. It's a
'keeper'!!
I have been understanding this construction as the word EI [if] plus A
[privative] contracted to IA. A quality is an attribution of an
object, which must be determined to apply or not, hence EI [if], and
to make the quality a noun, that EI [if] is removed [abstracted]. Is
this a useful approach?
George Blaisdell